


Strawberries

by Lobster



Series: A Year of Haymitch and Effie Drabbles [9]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Fish out of Water, Fluff, POV Outsider, Post-Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 05:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18440111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobster/pseuds/Lobster
Summary: Fifty-two weeks, fifty-two prompts, fifty-two drabbles; this work is part of a series of Haymitch/Effie drabbles inspired by one-word prompts. This week's prompt: strawberries.Haymitch and Effie  go strawberry picking in the woods.





	Strawberries

“All right, princess, it’s high time I take you strawberry picking,” Haymitch said, pulling out two half-gallon baskets from the cabinet beneath the silverware drawer. “It’s a beautiful day for a walk in the woods.”

“Strawberry picking? In the woods?” Effie looked at Haymitch as though he was speaking some incomprehensible dead language, Spanish or French or Japanese maybe.

“Yeah. You go out,” Haymitch mimed walking with his fingers, “into the woods,” he mimed the shape of a tree, “and pick strawberries off of bushes.” He mimed plucking an invisible strawberry and depositing it into his basket.

“Strawberries grow on bushes?” Effie asked, lost.

“Well, they’re more runners that can be trained to be bush-like…” he stopped at Effie’s glazed expression. “Yes. They grow on bushes, for all intents and purposes, at least the ones we’re after do.”

“And they’re in the woods?” Effie asked.

“I think we’ve established that, yes.”

“With all the bears and cougars and wolves and deer?”

“You know, I wouldn’t really lump deer in- listen, nothing’s going to bother us. Katniss will be half a mile away. And the woods are not actually all that dangerous. You know that’s just Capitol propaganda meant to keep people inside the fences, right?”

Effie seemed dubious, but she reluctantly took a half-gallon basket as well.

“Good. Now change your shoes and let’s go.”

“What’s wrong with the shoes I have on?”

“Nothing if you want to have blisters inside twenty minutes.” Haymitch rolled his eyes. “Does Katniss ever hunt in high heels?”

“Katniss never does anything in high heels,” Effie said with a touch of annoyance.

“Exactly,” Haymitch said, as though that settled the matter. “So go change your shoes. You have to have some walking shoes somewhere, you have at least thirty pairs.”

Muttering obscenities under her breath, Effie went to find a pair of shoes suitable for walking in the woods. By the time she’d made it back, Haymitch had packed a small basket.

“What’s that?” she asked, annoyed.

“Lunch,” he said.

Effie looked less annoyed at this news. “Well OK then. Lead on, Oh Great and Knowledgeable Woodsman.”

“I like the sound of that,” Haymitch said. “You should call me that more often.”

\---

Half an hour later, they were a short distance into the woods. Effie was tramping along, stepping on every twig and making her worries of encountering any wildlife at all extremely unlikely. Just as Haymitch could tell she was about to moan for a rest, he stopped.

“We’re here! That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said cheerfully, enjoying Effie’s distress a bit too much.

Effie just glared at him.

“I knew you’d love it. It’s easy to see why Katniss comes out here all the time, eh?” He was laying it on thick, he knew, but it was hilarious to him to see Effie so out of her element. Still, they _were_ here to pick strawberries…

“OK, so this is a strawberry patch,” he said, gesturing to where the strawberries were growing. It was obvious to him, but Effie didn’t seem to notice it.

“Why is it called a patch?” Effie wondered.

“Because… that’s what you call the place where strawberries grow. Anyway, it’s very easy to pick a strawberry. Watch me.” He plucked a strawberry off a nearby stem, examined it, and put it in his basket. “See? Easy. Just make sure it’s ripe before you pick it and if you pick a bruised one, don’t put it in the basket.”

“What do I do if I pick a bruised one?” Effie asked.

“If it’s not too bruised, you can eat it. Otherwise, leave it for the animals. They need to eat too.”

“ _Eat_ it? A _bruised_ strawberry? Without _washing_ it?” She said this in a tone that suggested he had told her she could eat rocks or animal dung.

“Food is food.” He shrugged. “Or if you want, you can eat some of the intact ones. Don’t eat too many though; we _are_ trying to fill the baskets.” To emphasize this, he plucked the nearest ripe strawberry and popped it in his mouth. Effie shuddered. “Or don’t. We’ll get done faster that way. But I’m not kidding when I say they’re really good fresh off the vine.”

Effie continued to look dubious, but she reached for a strawberry, carefully picked it, and took a pained bite. Then she smiled, a grin she couldn’t contain. “Haymitch, this is the best strawberry I’ve ever tasted. It’s even better than the strawberries they used to serve the tributes!”

“I know,” Haymitch said smugly.

She reached for another one, more enthusiastically this time.

“Just remember we’re supposed to be filling the baskets,” Haymitch said, as he disappeared into the patch. “Come back when you have and we can have lunch.”

“I’m going to be full of strawberries by then,” Effie told his retreating back, but she picked up her basket too and followed him into the patch.

\---

An hour later, they were laying in the sun, her head in his lap, on a blanket spread in the grass beside the strawberry patch. They were nibbling on a lunch of Peeta’s bread smeared with goat cheese, supplemented with fresh, sun-warmed strawberries and a bottle of wine they were trading sips from.

“What do you think of the woods now?” Haymitch asked her drowsily.

“You mean what do I think of the woods with you?” she replied. “I think they and you aren’t completely awful. When are we coming out here again?”

Haymitch smiled. “How about blueberry season?”

Effie hummed happily. “It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one got away from me too! Darn, how awful... ;) 
> 
> Thanks as always to Juxtaposie for the beta! <3


End file.
